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Microsoft Power BI vs Oracle OBIEE vs Pentaho Business Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Power BI offers high ROI due to cost-effectiveness, ease of use, improved analytics, and rapid cost recovery.
Sentiment score
6.9
Oracle OBIEE boosts reporting speed and decision-making despite some ROI challenges and enhances financial outcomes with WebLogic setups.
Sentiment score
5.4
Pentaho Business Analytics mixed ROI perceptions highlight efficiency gains but unclear returns compared to competitors like QlikView and Tableau.
In a world surrounded by data, tools that allow navigation of large data volumes ensure decisions are data-driven.
Power BI is easy to deploy within an hour, providing robust security against data leaks.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Power BI's support receives mixed reviews; users often rely on community resources for quicker, more effective solutions.
Sentiment score
5.8
Oracle OBIEE's customer service is mixed, with prompt responses but inconsistent resolution quality and frequent upgrade suggestions.
Sentiment score
6.5
Pentaho Business Analytics receives mixed reviews for customer support, with users relying heavily on forums and community assistance.
The significant drawback I notice is that Microsoft's size makes it hard to get specific change requests addressed unless they involve a bug.
We have a partnership with Microsoft, involving multiple weekly calls with dedicated personnel to ensure our satisfaction.
The support is good because there is also a community available.
The tendency to route users to sales personnel with limited technical expertise detracts from the support experience.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
Microsoft Power BI offers scalability and integration, though optimizing large deployments may require expertise, especially with complex or large data.
Sentiment score
6.9
Oracle OBIEE is scalable and versatile for enterprises, but complexity and infrastructure dependency can lead to performance issues.
Sentiment score
7.0
Pentaho Business Analytics is scalable with good performance but occasionally needs professional help for complex data handling.
You expect only a small percentage of users concurrently, but beyond a thousand concurrent users, it becomes difficult to manage.
With increasing AI capabilities, architectural developments within Microsoft, and tools like Fabric, I expect Power BI to scale accordingly.
As more data is processed, performance issues may arise.
While Oracle OBIEE is scalable, it is more of a niche product designed to work specifically with Oracle systems.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Power BI is stable and reliable, though large datasets may impact performance; frequent updates enhance its reputation.
Sentiment score
6.7
Oracle OBIEE is stable but needs proper configuration and infrastructure for high user concurrency and optimal performance.
Sentiment score
6.5
Pentaho Business Analytics is stable but may face Java caching issues, impacting performance and requiring careful cache management.
In terms of stability, there's no data loss or leakage, and precautions are well-managed by Microsoft.
We typically do not have problems with end-user tools like Excel and Power BI.
It is very stable for small data, but with big data, there are performance challenges.
It can handle large datasets.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Power BI is criticized for high costs, complexity, handling large data, and lacking intuitive interfaces and AI integration.
Oracle OBIEE is hindered by outdated visuals, complex usability, performance issues, and high costs, requiring enhancements and better support.
Pentaho Business Analytics lacks an intuitive interface, robust integration, self-service features, and requires technical expertise, limiting usability.
This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today.
Access was more logical in how it distinguished between data and its formatting.
Microsoft updates Power BI monthly based on user community feedback.
Oracle OBIEE has a steep learning curve compared to tools like SQL Server or Power BI.
Pentaho Business Analytics is hard to learn and not suited for initial users as it requires knowledge of operating systems, Java, and other technical skills.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Power BI offers flexible pricing, from free to premium, making it a cost-effective business intelligence tool for enterprises.
Oracle OBIEE's high cost and complex licensing can be offset by customizations and negotiated discounts for large-scale use.
Enterprise buyers find the free Pentaho Community Edition cost-effective, while the Enterprise Edition offers value with support and features.
I found the setup cost to be expensive
Power BI isn't very cheap, however, it is economical compared to other solutions available.
The pricing for Microsoft Power BI is low, which is a good selling point.
Oracle OBIEE is quite expensive, especially when compared to Microsoft's solutions.
Pentaho Business Analytics is priced similarly to other competitors such as QlikView and Tableau.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Power BI excels with seamless data integration, customizable dashboards, and user-friendly features, empowering self-service insights across industries.
Oracle OBIEE offers interactive dashboards, data visualization, secure data merging, and cloud-based architecture for advanced analytics and mobile access.
Pentaho Business Analytics provides easy data integration, customizable dashboards, extensive connectivity, and supports efficient data transformation and delivery.
In today's data-driven environment, these tools are of substantial value, particularly for large enterprises with numerous processes that require extensive data analysis.
Within the organization, Microsoft Power BI is used to create dashboards and gain insights into data, enhancing data-driven decision-making.
To reduce the need for highly skilled personnel, we can engage someone who is just familiar and has a basic understanding of Microsoft Power BI, while AI can handle the major tasks through either agent AI or requirement analysis.
A valuable feature of Oracle OBIEE is its ability to automate some tasks, such as invoice analysis, saving a significant amount of clerical work.
It is a stable product, and it can handle large datasets.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 20.4%, down from 21.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle OBIEE is 3.5%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pentaho Business Analytics is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Power BI20.4%
Oracle OBIEE3.5%
Pentaho Business Analytics0.5%
Other75.6%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Shoury Priyanshu - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates seamless data aggregation with some outdated visual elements hindering user appeal
Real-time data integration is an area for improvement. Although I've worked on several solutions involving real-time integration, it's not very user-friendly and often lags, especially with over a million data rows. This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today. There are challenges with scalability, requiring multiple pages in dashboards to manage these issues. Visualization could be improved as it appears outdated. Users, especially newcomers, find it unappealing and not user-friendly.
Ashok Bhadra - PeerSpot reviewer
Though comprehensive, it is expensive
The solution's most valuable feature is that it is a very comprehensive tool. Oracle OBIEE is a really robust tool for a very large enterprise implementation. Its features in terms of physical data model to logical data model building are all really robust. Though somebody else had developed the tool for the client for whom I used the tool, it was very well done. The data modeling was very well done, and it depends on the person who is executing it, as I hadn't developed it. I had just enhanced it. I had seen whatever my role was, but somebody had initially developed it. It was developed very well. It has a fantastic feature of documenting. When you work with many clients, you see the documentation is always missing, and you end up taking up some other vendor's job. It is usually very hard to figure out technically what was done, what was not done, and where the data is, so the data dictionaries are not up to date, and information documentation is always very poor. Oracle OBIEE has a built-in feature where you can actually create entire documentation of all the data elements and how they are linked, and it throws out HTML documents that are all interlinked, so if you have an entire directory structure, it helps create the document. You can find out which logical model links to which physical table, and it is very easy to identify. There are multiple combinations if you want to identify one particular table and how many models are involved. You just need to click a hyperlink click, and it gives you all the information. If somebody has made any enhancements, you can just regenerate the document as there is a component of the tool that generates the documentation automatically, which is brilliant, I think.
Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Excels in handling unstructured data, helping organizations navigate through different storage systems
Pentaho can help organizations by providing them an insight of their unstructured data using one platform(Pentaho Business Analytics). The features are almost identical to other BIS platforms but to me, customers can benefit as it has a community version with most of its Enterprise features. It also has a free limited-period trial version. The other feature that I would like to share here is, that users have access to a complete spectrum of data from different sources with the system’s adaptive big data layer, which takes the source of the data into account. The software is built on an open architecture and can be integrated with multiple systems. However, Pentaho Data Integration and Analytics has been acquired by HDS which offers an Enterprise edition for organizations that also need to meet product compliance.
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 4, 2015
Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho
1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business134
Midsize Enterprise57
Large Enterprise165
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business39
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise102
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I wou...
Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?
Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize info...
How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?
Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are ...
Which Oracle product is better - OBIEE or Analytics Cloud?
Oracle OBIEE is designed to be relatively easy to set up and has a helpful customer support staff at the ready to ass...
What do you like most about Oracle OBIEE?
The most valuable feature of Oracle OBIEE is its ability to handle large volumes of data and provide traditional BI f...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle OBIEE?
Oracle OBIEE is quite expensive, especially when compared to Microsoft's solutions.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pentaho Business Analytics?
Pentaho Business Analytics offers the best value for money. While improvements can be made in some areas, particularl...
What needs improvement with Pentaho Business Analytics?
From an integration perspective, Pentaho Business Analytics is not the best tool on the market. There are things done...
What is your primary use case for Pentaho Business Analytics?
We use Pentaho Business Analytics primarily as an ETL process to extract data, transform them, and load them into our...
 

Also Known As

SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
OBIEE, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, Oracle BI, Oracle BI EE 11g
Pentaho, Kettle, Hitachi Pentaho Business Analytics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox
Banca Transilvania, BeckmanCoulter, Hong Kong Housing Society, HealthShare, Ivanhoe Cambridge Unifies, and Home Credit, and Finance Bank.
Cargo 2000 Lufthansa, Marketo, ModCloth, Cardiac Science, Telefonica, ExactTarget, Active Broadband Networks, and Brussels Airport.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP and others in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools. Updated: August 2025.
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